Column Chronicles: Fallen lottery winners

Fallen lottery winners

Frank Cotolo
November 22, 2018

The sad stories concerning people who have won millions of dollars with lottery play are not few and far between - they are all too common. People who play lotteries to become rich and hit the lotteries and become rich rarely know how to handle money and fall into destitution very soon after they reach millionaire status.

Here are a few sad stories about such people. Their names have been changed as part of the deal made for them to reveal their embarrassing episodes.

"I won fifteen million," said Rex Ripon, "and I quit my job immediately. That would have been all right but when I realized I could quit my job I went into the office of my boss, who had treated me like scum for years, and I punched him so hard that he crashed through his office window. He sued me for all I had won and he won and I lost all of my money and, obviously, my boss would not hire me again."

"Everything I ever wanted could be mine," said Liz Lavadore, who won a super lottery with one two-dollar ticket that got her a hundred fifty million bucks."

"It was amazing because I was so poor I only had breakfast once in sixteen years. My kids, all six of them, wore the same clothing from first grade through high school. So, when I because a multi-millionaire I went all out. I bought a big house and hired chefs to serve breakfasts three times a day. I bought my kids clothes that they would wear only once then throw out and I found a man who said he loved me and we married. It wasn't two years before the I R S came knocking at the door and made me pay more taxes than they had taken from me when I won the hundred fifty million bucks. Then my husband said he wanted a divorce because I didn't let him use any of the money so he sued me for a lot of it and then my kids wanted to go to college for the rest of their lives and my new life fell apart like a cardboard suitcase."

"I lost count of how much I won," said Malvern Michalobe, "because I hit huge pots four weeks in a row. I was already spending the money from the first win when I won the second lottery and then I was spending from the second when I won the third lottery and then I was spending from the winnings of the third score when I won the fourth lottery. I finally bought a piece of land where I could have a house built and a warehouse to keep all of the things I bought. But I decided I didn't like most of what I bought so I bought other things I thought I would like. I gave the old stuff away and as I was furnishing the new house I had built I grew tired of the new stuff that I thought I liked better than the old stuff and gave that away. Before I knew it, someone was asking me for a load of five million and I said sure but I didn’t have one million left and I had to sell the house and the land and find a job so I could keep my deal and loan that person the five million I said I would loan him."

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.